Excerpt on Silence from Hearing God’s Voice Album by our Mother Foundress
“Be still and know that I am God” (Ps 46: 10 or 11)
Silence is primarily a state of mind, a state of heart. It is this inner room that Jesus talked about where we enter to pray to the Father in secret (Mt 6:6). In the presence of God, we are in the presence of pure Love, and we become very silent because we are communication love to Love, heart to Heart, spirit to Spirit. We need places of silence in our lives, but you don’t want to associate silence with that place. It is a state of mind, a state of heart. You can be in the noisiest of places, in the marketplace, at home busy with children, at the workplace, and still enter into this phenomenal silence within. It is an awareness of that Presence within. You are listening all the time and you are focused with your attention on the Presence within. That is a silent soul. A noisy soul is one who would be doing a lot of talking to oneself, a lot of replaying old tapes.
Charity has a lot to do with silence and maintaining silence. If we are harboring uncharitable thoughts, we are probably having a bit of noise within and a lot of chatter within. You can be in total solitude in your home, and if you are not quiet within because you are not handling certain things that need to be dealt with, you can be very noisy inside and not coming into that presence of God in that immense silence of prayer. So, we need to cultivate and ask for this kind of silence that teaches us how to love, because it provides the climate to listen.
In silence, we hear revelation. The Father reveals in silence, “This is my beloved Son.” Then the Father says, “Listen to Him” (Mk 9:7). The Father is revealing Jesus to us in the silence.
Some of the fruits of silence are found in Is 55:3, “Come to Me heedfully. Listen, that you may have Life.” In this atmosphere of silence, and remember silence is listening prayer, we listen and the fruit of listening is Life. In Jn 10:10, Jesus says, “I have come that you may have Life and have it to the full.” So, we see that silence is one of the ways He gives us Life, because we listen, we hear, we connect, we seek, and we receive Life. Then we have it, Jesus says, “to the full.”
“Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Lk 1:45)
Excerpt on Prayer from Hearing God’s Voice Album by our Mother Foundress
“Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it." (Mk 10:15)
We want to go to prayer with an attitude of a child, to be taught by God. He is telling us to learn of Him. Jesus also said, “Learn of Me. I am meek and humble of Heart” (Mt 11:29). He wants us to know His Heart because He is a God of revelation. He reveals hidden things, not only hidden things about Himself, Heaven, the world, or prophetic things, but the painful part, the hidden things about ourselves as well. That’s why a lot of us run from this kind of prayer (contemplative prayer), because He might ask me to change. It’s a kind of mentality that “Ignorance is bliss.” If I don’t know, then I don’t have to do it. If I don’t hear or listen to Him, then I don’t have to change.” If you find yourself skipping prayer time, and making excuses of more important ways to spend thirty minutes a day instead of with the Lord, maybe you’re running. If we want to know His Will, then we will be true to our daily prayer time with Him to stop, look and listen! It’s only in His Perfect Will that we can have union with God.
The mission of an intercessor and a prayer warrior is to be there with Jesus at the right hand of the Father, in His Throne Room. In Rv 3:21-22, the Lord says, “He who conquers I will grant him or her to sit with me on My Throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with My Father on His Throne. He who has an ear, let him hear the Spirit’s word to the Churches.” This is what happens when we come into the inner castle of the soul, into the inner room, the Throne Room. It’s the special dwelling place of the Father, and He has taken up residence there within each of us. We are His earthen vessels. We need to allow ourselves to be led into the Throne Room stage-by-stage, day-by-day. That is where intercession is at its best, because there is power there and, even more importantly, there is Presence there. Intercession has power when we enter into the full presence of Love, and that is what we all seek, love and union! It’s in that room where all these other voices of the “self” stop clamoring for attention. It means our intellect has stopped clamoring, our memory isn’t bothering us anymore, our will is totally surrendered and at peace, and the emotions are resting as well. Everything is resting, and this is where God reveals Himself and His Will, His Word, His Love, His Peace, all within.
Prayer is a journey, a journey from our brokenness to wholeness, from our sinfulness to holiness, from our separateness to unity, from being just in isolation to being now with God and with each other. All the Lord asks from us every day is that daily response, “Yes, Lord. Here I am Lord. Be it done unto me according to Your Will.”
“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” (Mt 5:6)
Excerpt on Prayer from Hearing God’s Voice Album by our Mother Foundress
“Now this is eternal life, that they should know You, the only true God, and the One whom you sent, Jesus Christ.” Jn 17:3
Prayer is a gift, a gift to obtain Life. Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well, “If you but knew the gift of God” (Jn 4:23). Jesus is equating Life and prayer; worship being the highest form of prayer. This is the very heart of Jesus’ whole message.
In Genesis 19:17, Lot is told, “Flee into the hill country or you will die.” To flee into the hill country for us means to flee into an area of the heart – away from the noise and the busyness. It is to come apart into an area of the heart where God is, where the air is more purified, and into His presence, so we can hear. Prayer happens when we are in the hill country, because there is nobody else there but God. That is when we have the encounter with Life.
Jesus Himself said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” (Jn 14:6). Jesus is Life, and He also said, “I have come that you may have Life and have it in abundance” (Jn10:10). Prayer is the way we receive this Life in abundance. I see that it is my very lifeline, and it becomes a lifestyle. This is even more necessary for those of us who are in the world (but not of it). Mother Teresa of Calcutta saw the level of spiritual life in our country, and told us that the worst poverty she had ever seen was in America because of our spiritual poverty, the lack of Divine Life alive in our souls.
Paul says that we need to experience “the height, the depth, the length, the breadth of His love.” He said, “This is the experience of all the saints” and “This is why I kneel now before the Father, and I pray that you may have this experience” (cf. Eph 3:18-19). This is contemplative prayer, a gift of God’s love and life, the very gift of God Himself to us. It is communication, conversation, relationship, and encounter. It’s union! Jesus talks about this in His last priestly prayer when He prayed: “That they may all be one as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they may be one in Us.” (Jn 17:21). He is praying that we may have this gift of union.
“As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for You, O God.” (Ps 42:2)
Excerpt from Sacrament of Love by our Mother Foundress
“These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes…” (Rv 14:4)
We have a mission to carry on with Jesus, the Lamb. “Behold the Lamb of God, Who continues to take away the sin of the world” (cf. Jn 1:29). Jesus taught His Apostles this. He said, “When you pray, wherever you go, in My Name preach penance for the remission of sins.” (cf. Lk 24:47) “Preach the Cross. Tell My people not to be afraid of suffering because this is how we eradicate sin. This is how we take away sin.”
We’re called “to live Jesus and His Cross” because this is living His agape love to the fullest. Pain is useless if it’s not united with the pain of Jesus. So with any kind of pain or suffering, physical, or especially of the heart, unite it with the suffering of Jesus and then the pain becomes powerful to save souls. It becomes redemptive.
Jesus Himself speaks to us at Mass. When that Chalice with the Blood of the Lamb is lifted up, He says, “Do this in memory of Me.” In other words, You do this. You lay down your lives now for others. You love one another as I have loved you. You do this in remembrance of Me.” Love makes us vulnerable so our hearts will be pierced from time to time at this level. There is no protection for a heart that’s loving and open to receive love, and so we will experience the piercing of the heart, but we can use it as it was used on Calvary. When the Heart of Jesus was pierced and the Blood and Water flowed out, He was giving Life. He was giving Life to all the Sacraments of the Church. He was giving Life to humanity again.
“Remain in Me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me” (Jn 15:4)
Excerpt from Prepare the Way of the Lord Album by our Mother Foundress
“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to Your Word.” (Lk 1:38)
Mary gave Herself totally to the Lord. She gave everything that She was, everything that She had, everything that She really is. And She received a hundredfold. She received the fullness of Life, the fullness of Light, and the fullness of Love. She received the fullness of the Trinity. She said that God had made Her the most blessed of all and that Her spirit rejoiced in God, Her Savior (cf. Lk 1:46-47). Joy is always the infallible sign of the presence of God. Satan can imitate almost everything else. He can do so much imitation but he cannot imitate joy because joy is God Himself. It is the presence of God Himself.
Can you imagine what it will be like when the Church really goes into the desert again, really becomes contemplative again and really starts receiving the enfleshment of the Word, experiencing the joy? Can you imagine the evangelization that will go forth? People are drawn to happy people. Joy is contagious. You cannot camouflage joy, can you?
We want to be people of joy. We want to be Pentecost people. At Pentecost, Our Lady was with the disciples so that they could have the same experience in that upper room which She had at the Annunciation. Out of the climate of silence, authentic prayer really begins. Here is where revelation and contemplation comes. As we are fed, we become quieter, more silent. We start to gaze. The more we gaze, the more we become like the One at whom we are gazing – Jesus!
“And (behold) I am sending the Promise of My Father upon you; but stay in the city until you are clothed with Power from on High.” (Lk 24:49)
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